Head of Digital Assets Risk Approvals and Portfolio Oversight

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Job Overview

This is a critical senior leadership role at the forefront of Citi's strategic evolution, accountable for providing independent portfolio oversight and authoritative approval for all Digital Asset initiatives across the enterprise. Digital Assets, in this context, refers to Crypto, Stablecoins, tokenized securities, Blockchain, Central Bank Digital Currencies, and such related tokenized real-world assets. This role is the firm's key second-line leader responsible for the risk posture of a vast and complex portfolio, ensuring that our adoption of Digital Assets is both ambitious and safe.

This position is central to navigating the risks and opportunities of Digital Assets across 90+ countries, hundreds of products, and core enterprise processes. The individual in this role will set the standard for responsible Digital Assets adoption, balancing innovation with a strong commitment to risk management in a dynamic and often unregulated global landscape. This includes proactively monitoring and responding to the evolving industry and competitive landscape, especially concerning unregulated industry players. A sound understanding of the full lifecycle of digital assets, from inception to decommissioning, and comprehensive strategic risk management across this lifecycle is paramount.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Risk Leadership & Vision

• Act as the primary 2LOD approval authority for all Digital Asset initiatives firm-wide, owning the aggregate risk posture of the Digital Assets portfolio throughout its lifecycle.
• Set and continuously refine the strategic vision for Digital Assets risk management and technology risk strategy within the portfolio, ensuring frameworks are effectively implemented and aligned with Citi's risk appetite and accounting for emerging threats and opportunities.
• Champion a Digital Assets-focused mindset by challenging existing processes and driving the re-engineering of workflows to unlock efficiency and simplicity, always with an emphasis on addressing strategic risk at every stage.

Independent Oversight & Credible Challenge

• Provide decisive, independent challenges on all Digital Asset initiatives, from strategy and design through execution and post-production monitoring, grounded in deep technical expertise and a thorough understanding of the digital asset lifecycle.
• Leverage subject matter expertise in critical Digital Asset risk areas, including market integrity, liquidity risk, operational resilience, smart contracts, distributed ledger technology, cryptography, custody solutions, interoperability, anti-money laundering (AML), combating the financing of terrorism (CFT), sanctions compliance, and consumer protection, to assess and mitigate novel risks, ensuring all use cases are robust and compliant with existing and emerging regulations, including new regulations related to stablecoins and crypto that have emerged in recent years.
• Conduct thematic reviews to identify emerging risk trends related to Digital Assets and ensure the control environment remains effective as the technology and regulatory landscape evolves, particularly in response to unregulated industry players.

Governance, Execution & Continuous Improvement

• Drive the execution and continuous refinement of the Digital Assets Risk Management Framework, adapting processes to meet evolving technological and regulatory demands, with a focus on the entire lifecycle of digital assets inventory.
• Define, monitor, and report on Key Performance and Risk Indicators (KPIs/KRIs) to govern progress and ensure the realization of committed business value from Digital Asset initiatives, while integrating strategic risk considerations.
• Ensure governance frameworks are applied consistently across all teams and that changes to Digital Asset initiatives are rigorously reviewed and approved throughout their lifecycle, including thorough consideration of new regulations impacting digital assets.

Senior Stakeholder Engagement & Influence

• Serve as the primary Digital Assets risk advisor to senior leaders and business/function heads, articulating complex risk exposures to influence strategic decisions, with an emphasis on both risk strategy and technology risk strategy.
• Lead a high-performing team of senior risk professionals, fostering a culture of proactive partnership, expertise, and credible challenge.
• Represent Citi's Digital Assets risk posture in key regulatory discussions and industry forums, actively reaching out to industry players, contributing to thought leadership on responsible Digital Assets, and navigating the industry and competitive landscape, especially concerning unregulated entities.

Qualifications & Experience:

• Extensive experience in a large, complex financial institution, regulatory body, or related field.
• Experience in a senior leadership role within risk management, audit, model governance, or technology risk, with a proven ability to determine comprehensive risk and technology risk strategies.
• Demonstrated knowledge in Digital Assets, including current and emerging technologies such as Crypto, Stablecoins, tokenized securities, Blockchain, Central Bank Digital Currencies, Smart Contracts, and Distributed Ledgers, and their specific risk implications within a financial services context, with an understanding of new regulations.
• Proven track record of scaling large, complex Digital Asset or technology initiatives from concept through to production and continuous improvement, managing the full lifecycle of digital assets inventory.
• Proven ability to provide decisive, independent challenges to senior leadership and influence strategic outcomes in a principles-based manner, engaging with both internal and external industry players.
• Demonstrated success leading high-performing, multi-disciplinary teams and driving change in a complex, global organization.
• A track record of operating effectively in high-pressure, fast-paced environments, demonstrating resilience and sound judgment under ambiguity, particularly within an evolving regulatory and competitive landscape.
• Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree preferred.

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Job Family Group:

Risk Management

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Job Family:

Enterprise Risk

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Time Type:

Full time

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Most Relevant Skills

Analytical Thinking, Business Acumen, Credible Challenge, Governance, Issue Management, Policy and Procedure, Policy and Regulation, Risk Controls and Monitors, Risk Identification and Assessment, Stakeholder Management.

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Other Relevant Skills

For complementary skills, please see above and/or contact the recruiter.

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